Third annual PR blunders list highlights 1997 gaffes.

St. John, Burton

The top 10 PR foul-ups of 1997 were recently released by Fineman Associates, a San Francisco public relations agency. With few exceptions, the list reveals a dangerous combination - companies making what The Wall Street Journals Yumiko Oho called "klutzy moves" while under media scrutiny. In fact, all the blunders on the list were widely reported from such sources as Reuters, the Associated Press, the Newhouse News Service and Bloomberg Business News.

With only a hint of irony, Fineman's list leads with Procter & Gamble's use of its own list - a ranking of the "least kissable" celebrities, as reflected in a poll of 1,000 men and women. P&G's poll was designed to get its mouthwash, Scope, publicity. It did.

Rosie O'Donnell, who made the list, belittled the product on her daytime talk show, saying, "If you're a dope, you use Scope," and handing out bottles of Listerine to her studio audience. Her tirades were also extensively re-. ported in such publications as TV Guide, Brandweek and Reputation Management.

When The Wall Street Journal asked P&G's Bill Dobson about the promotion's future, he said, "We probably won't do the least-kissable portion of it, just because it has the potential to offend whoever's on that list."

The American Medical Association also places prominently on the list, because of its ill-fated attempt to place its seal of approval on Sunbeam products. Through a series of poor or miscommunications with Sunbeam, a five-year endorsement deal was announced to widespread media coverage - without the final approval of the AMA's top leadership.

The AMA subsequently refuted the unprecedented agreement, but the story eventually led to the resignations of AMA's vice president and general counsel. The AMA is now facing a $20 million lawsuit from Sunbeam (which, in itself, is drawing some criticism - the St. Petersburg Times called the suit "a dumb move").

American Airlines is the dominant airline at Dallas/Ft. Worth International, and a major player throughout Texas. Consequently, the airline has been receiving considerable attention and criticism from the media concerning its position against the expansion of Dallas' Love Field - and the competition such expansion could bring from Southwest Airlines. In fact, one wouldn't be surprised if American Airlines decided to take a low profile in the face of such scrutiny.

So it appears quite remarkable that the airline decided to promote its first Austin-Miami flight with a Fidel Castro look-alike greeting passengers at the gate. Also remarkable - the telling of Cuban jokes over the flight's intercom. In addition, the airline printed a pilot's manual that, Fineman said, "characterized Latin Americans as drunk and unruly passengers, likely to call in a bomb threat rather than miss a plane." Although the FAA obviously didn't see the "pilot's manual," Reuters did; hence American Airlines' spot on the blunder list.

Others who made the list:

* Sloan-Kettering, which sent out surveys to black women that featured questions about voodoo, white racism and stereotypical diet ("do you ever eat chitterlings?"). The company told The Wall Street Journal that it was merely trying to find out why black women apparently didn't trust the "medical establishment."

* The Babe Ruth League in Boca Raton, Fla., which insisted that 12-year-old Melissa Raglin wear a jockstrap and cup, or else be removed as catcher. The league told the Associated Press that the rule was for Raglin's protection.

* Philip Morris - more specifically its president, James Morgan, who said cigarettes have minimal addictive effect. "If they are behaviorally addictive or habit forming, they are much more like caffeine," said Morgan, "or, in my case, Gummy Bears ... I don't like it when I don't eat my Gummy Bears, but I'm certainly not addicted to them."

* Eat Me Now Foods, and its president Steve Corri. The company made Crave, test tubes filled with white sugar. When parents objected that the product resembled a drug, Corri fought back by saying "[they're] constipated hypocrites ... It is their problem not mine." When this San Jose Mercury News story went national, Corri pulled Crave off the shelves.

* Converse, which signed Dennis Rodman to shill its footwear. The Boston Globe reported the deal just days after Rodman attacked a court-side reporter by kicking him in the groin.

* Corning, Inc., which, with a "no comment," snubbed a local reporter's inquiry about possible declines in the fiber optics business. "The resulting story in the Coming Leader concluded that Corning was in 'a state of emergency,'" said Fineman. The story went national and Corning's stock plummeted overnight.

* Nike, which, in the face of extensive strikes in its Southeast Asian facilities, maintained that its workers there are "better off than most and that abuses are isolated." The story received national attention through the Newhouse News Service and prompted Garry Trudeau to excoriate Nike repeatedly in the syndicated strip Doonesbury.